CRamS wrote:Raja Ram wrote:
Slowly, the ruling party is sliding into even labelling nationalism as non-secular. This is appeasement gone beyond reason. It must be stopped.
Boss great points, but that preaching to the choir here on BR, but on the bolded part, can you tell us how? MMS & Co are on a roll, nothing, not Mumbai, not the 2G scanda, not commonwealth fiascao etc that shows their incompetence seems to upset the Indian public. So how do we stop him from going ahead with his TSP bhaichara?
CRamS
The way I see it is that the Indian public is upset. Not the talking shop media and paper outlets that are in the payroll of the elite in business and politics. That is why these outlets do not talk about it.
The Indian public and that includes the muslims of India, have given their verdict in an emphatic way in Bihar and in Gujarat recently. There seems to be a growing sense of realism and a desire to bring in some accountability. It is another matter that the Indian electorate does not have a great array of choices. It has to choose from amongst the mediocre, a best amongst the mediocre alternatives.
But Pakistan is not an electoral issue, and it seems that cross border terror like the attack ion Mumbai still does not warrant any national discussion as an electoral issue. That is the reason that INC is getting away with trying to please the USG on Pakistan and relegating our national interests and concerns.
First there should be sense of awareness of the futility of trying to mend relations with this artificial entity. It means the myths have to be exposed.
What can one do? is the question you have asked. I can do something about it and I am doing so. We have started a small group here in Chennai and have been organizing small meetings where we brief the professional, students, gen y and women about some of these issues. We point them out to resources like BR forums so that they can begin their self discovery. We also provide presentations and other materials to share with their families. The idea is to build a network of people who will inform others by word of mouth and social media.
If we are able to build a base of people who are willing to make it an issue and demand actions on Pakistan, and if this becomes a rallying point for political parties to take positions and seek votes, we can stop the perpetuation of these myths. At the least, we can at least mount an open challenge to these mythical assertions of "A stable and prosperous Pakistan is in the interest of India's Growth and prosperity" and "We need to talk to Pakistan no matter what, there is no other alternative."
We speak at small schools, family and community gatherings, temples, colleges, diverse fora including consultative ones and foras of political parties. We speak in English and Tamil for better reach.
In the last 4 months, I have been speaking every week end on one topic of national security or other. That is what I can do as an effort to stop it. Believe me, there are enough people with nationalistic sentiments who are willing to take the message, even in small regional parties and in the INC too.
One must understand the limitations too. National Security issues will not be "the" electoral issue in India, unless there is an existential threat so overt, like in 1962. But what we see is that this evokes a more broad based positive response across the various segments and unifies more people. It takes a lot of effort. You have to move people from being "apathetic and indifferent" to being "aware and concerned" and then to being "activist for nationalistic thought". We are attempting to bring in the rigor of marketing to the process. Let us see how these experiments work out.
Sorry for the OT post gentle readers, I just thought I was obliged to answer the question "How can it be stopped?" Oh yes! please wish us well in this endeavour!
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run by the Strategic Plans Division, which is in charge of nuclear security. The program is designed to screen out Taliban sympathizers, religious extremists and Al Qaeda spies.
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